‘There is no fuel crisis in Texas,’ but drivers are flooding stations anyway

Fear of a fuel shortage after Harvey led hundreds to flock to gas stations, causing pandemonium at the pumps. At the Costco on Coit, cars snaked in every direction. (Photo by Emily Charrier)

Although a major oil pipeline shut down, there is no shortage of supply in Texas, assures Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton. Well, at least there wasn’t until everyone started running to the gas station out of fear of low supplies and rising prices.

There’s gas. We just have to get it to pumps (see pic, working on it). When people panic and fill up unnecessarily, makes it harder. pic.twitter.com/TJV4teMZkB

That didn’t stop borderline pandemonium at the pumps, as lines snaked in every direction, often blocking traffic and causing some very tense moments between drivers.

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Sitton said it’s simple supply and demand — if drivers kept their normal habits instead of running up demand, the supply would not have been disrupted. The results are severe, tracker.gasbuddy.com is monitoring gas station supplies, a majority of which seem to be tapped in Dallas.

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Gasbuddy.com shows how many neighborhood stations are out of fuel. Red is out of fuel, black is without power, green dots have a supply as of Friday morning and grey is unknown.

Tanker trucks visit most gas stations every day, sometime multiple times a day, so if demand relaxes, supply should even out.